Five Ways Cake Caused Rodney Pain
by Leesa Perrie
Summary: Rodney, cake, pain and even a death of an OC.  What more do you want? Oh, friendship too.


**Five Ways Cake Caused Rodney Pain**

**By Leesa Perrie**

_Definitions are from an online dictionary and are __written in order shown on that site, but with one definition missing as I didn't want to write a Six-Ways story._

_Written for the SGAFlashfic Cake or Death Challenge (on live journal) _

**One:**

_Idiom - 'a piece of cake', Informal - something easily done: She thought her first solo flight was a piece of cake._

_Noun - a sweet, baked, bread-like food, made with or without shortening, and usually containing flour, sugar, baking powder or soda, eggs, and liquid flavouring._

**___Set pre-Atlantis_**

It was a piece of cake.

Literally, a piece of cake.

Lemon icing on two layers of lemon flavoured sponge with lemon curd and cream in the middle. The only thing that wouldn't kill him was the cream, except it was now contaminated by all that yellow death.

He backed away slowly, muttering about not being hungry, and how nice of her to bake it especially for him, but he really, really couldn't eat another bite. She was disappointed, he could see that, so he suggested that she put some in a container for him to take home.

But he knew he'd lost some points with her, and he wasn't surprised when a few days later she broke up with him. It wasn't just the damned cake, he knew that, but it hadn't made things better.

Maybe he should have told her about his allergy earlier, he'd certainly meant to. Usually he did when going to dine at someone's house, but he hadn't wanted to seem difficult, and he knew what she'd planned for the main meal and that it was safe. She'd told him her plans excitedly the day before.

But she hadn't mentioned the cake, a nice surprise for him.

Not so nice, actually, not that she was to know that.

Maybe it wasn't meant to be, even though he liked her. A lot.

Stupid allergy, stupid cake, but most of all, stupid him.

**Two:**

_Noun - pancake; griddlecake._

_**Set Season Three**_

It was a pancake, and the juice of doom.

A damned pancake!

It seemed that Pancake Day, or Shrove Tuesday, was celebrated by a few of the nationalities among them. Of course many of them had differing traditions, so to save potential problems Elizabeth had declared that each nationality was to take it in turns to use the kitchens. That way they could make their own pancakes with their own particular recipes and toppings, though she made sure that they welcomed anyone who wanted to try their pancakes, including those who didn't normally celebrate the day.

The first year that Pancake Day had come around, the expedition had still been cut off from Earth and the flour was running low, so everyone had had to make do without pancakes. The second year, everyone who had been in Atlantis during the first year seemed to be going out of their way to make up for the loss. Elizabeth was willing to allow it, for the sake of morale, and turned a blind eye to the unofficial pancake races down various corridors; so long as they were cleared first to avoid accidents. She'd even allowed the British contingent a chance to re-enact the Ashbourne Shrovetide football (and the term was used extremely loosely by everyone) match, and quite a crowd of people gathered to join in with the rough and tumble game; especially bored military types.

There was golden syrup for those to whom it was an essential topping, like the British, and maple syrup for others. Of course, anyone caught putting maple syrup on their pancake was gently (or not so gently in a few cases) derided for their choice by any Brits in the vicinity. There was also lemon and sugar on hand for those who preferred that traditional topping. And there were always those handful who dumped golden syrup and lemon juice onto their pancakes, along with sugar, but the less said about them the better.

Rodney had wandered into the mess hall whilst the Brits were in charge, and after complaining bitterly about all the potentially fatal citrus juice in the area, tucked into a British style pancake, a little thinner than the normal Canadian and American version, but still very nice. He smothered the first one with maple syrup, ignoring the jibes that brought in his direction, and the second one with golden syrup, to see what it was like.

The third got both syrups, one on each side.

He would have gone for more, but apparently three was the limit - and whose inane idea had that been - so he grumbled and, grabbing a pudding cup and an apple, headed out of the mess hall.

Meanwhile, Ronon had been intrigued by the lemon shaped and sized plastic containers holding the lemon juice. He soon worked out that you needed to squeeze them in the middle for the juice to come out of the hole, and so he did, but misjudged rather badly the amount of pressure required and pressed the yellow plastic with much of his strength. The result was spectacular.

The stream of lemon juice missed his pancake and hit his plate, spraying upwards and to the sides, covering everyone at the table as well as several people walking past; one of whom was Rodney.

The juice hit him on the arms (he wasn't wearing his jacket, just a short-sleeved t-shirt), and even a few drops hit his face.

He was descended on by Sheppard and Teyla, who rushed him into the kitchen area to wash the citrus off, while Ronon radioed for a med team.

Luckily, having not actually ingested any of the juice, his reaction was not as severe as it could have been. Minor swelling, causing a nasty wheeze, and red hives. Bad, but not deadly, fortunately.

He was out of the infirmary by the next day and back in his labs, causing terror in all but a few. Radek, annoyingly, being one of the latter.

Ronon arrived several times during the day with a supply of pudding cups, blue Jell-O and chocolate chip cookies; and just where had he found those? Rodney still had no clue, and it wasn't for lack of asking...

After the nth time he was interrupted by Ronon he couldn't stand it anymore. He told him that; it was _an accident_, he had _forgiven him_, and could he please get out of the lab, _right now_, and stop interrupting him _every five minutes_, because he couldn't concentrate on his _highly important work_ otherwise and just might end up _sinking the city_.

Ronon just smiled, clearly amused by Rodney's outburst, then nodded and left, leaving behind the pudding cup he'd brought with him.

Damn irritating caveman.

Rodney turned back to his work, absent-mindedly opening the pudding cup.

Mmm, chocolate; one of his favourites.

**Three:**

___Noun - a shaped or moulded mass of other food: __a fish cake._

**___Set during Rodney's teen years_**

It was fishcake.

Fairly innocuous, one would have thought; incorrectly.

He was fourteen when his mother had gone in for an operation, a hysterectomy he'd overheard and had immediately set about looking up in the medical books at the library, wishing he hadn't bothered afterwards; definitely a case of too much information.

Anyway, it was clear she'd need help around the house for a while, and as Rodney's father was a busy man who often didn't get home from work until 7 pm, his grandma had volunteered to look after the kids until their mother was back home and fully recovered.

His grandma, who was awaiting cataract surgery on her eyes, and was half blind.

So this fateful day, when his mom had gone into hospital for her operation, his grandma decided to make Jeannie's favourite for dinner; fishcakes. She'd have something else later with her son when he came home from work, but fishcakes was fine for the kids; as if Rodney was still a 'kid' at fifteen, he'd muttered to himself.

He wished she'd just brought some from a shop, but that was 'unhealthy' and so she made the fishcakes from scratch herself. Which would have been fine if she could have seen what she was doing when boning the fish.

Served up, Rodney had soon realised that the cakes had lots of little and not so little bones in them, which sucked. Fortunately his grandma was in another room and wouldn't get upset at her mistake, or be offended that he'd mentioned it, no doubt going on to point out that they were lucky she was able to help or else they would have to make their meals themselves and do the housework and so on... He'd already had one tirade from her that day and he really didn't want another.

He pulled Jeannie's plate over, removing the bones for her as best he could and telling her not to say anything as it would just upset grandma, and then did the same for his own meal, which tasted alright after that, if still a little crunchy.

It was a short while later that it happened. The family cat, the one who loved him more than the rest of the family; the one who followed him everywhere around the house and slept on his bed at night; the one he confided his secrets and his fears to; the one he loved more than any other cat he'd ever known and had owned for nearly seven years; found the fish bones that his grandma hadn't cleared away properly due to her poor eyesight. And choked to death before anyone was able to help her on one of the bigger bones.

He'd never eaten fishcake again; at least, not until that first year on Atlantis, when food was scarce and if fishcake was the only thing on the menu, well, he didn't have much choice, did he?

But he always felt sick afterwards.

**Four:**

___Noun - a shaped or compressed mass: __a cake of soap; a cake of ice._

_**Season One, Atlantis**_

It was a bar of soap. A stupid bar of soap.

McKay groaned at the memory.

He'd smuggled in some perfume-free shower gel and a sponge, not wanting to have to defend them as 'necessary items' as opposed to his being 'personal item' quota. And he had been right to.

Damned military issued soap.

Unfortunately, he went through the shower gel much more quickly than he'd expected; too many off world missions with mud or other nasty substances he'd rather forget about. His sponge had disintegrated far too fast for his liking as well, forcing him to grab a few military issued flannels, which felt too harsh for his sensitive skin.

The military were masochists, obviously.

And then the soap. Standard, ordinary, and too damn slippery.

So he'd lost hold of it, several times; so that one time he'd managed to step on it whilst trying to retrieve it, so what? Not like he was the only one to do something like that.

Stupid soap.

He'd fallen on his hands and knees, bruising his left knee enough to leave him with a limp for a few days, and spraining his left wrist.

Carson had been unsympathetic; giving him a mini-lecture on being more careful, all the while laughter dancing in his so-called friend's eyes, damn him.

He'd managed to fob people off about how he had injured himself, telling them it was none of their business, and now typing with one hand was driving him crazy. Not to mention trying to use his tools to investigate or fix things.

But did he get any sympathy from anyone? No, of course not.

It didn't help when, three days after the accident, Major Sheppard managed to prise out of him what had happened, with the help of some Athosian alcohol; and whose idea had it been to bring alcohol to Team Night? Bad idea. Very bad idea; he should have known better.

The next day when he'd returned to his quarters it was to find that someone, Sheppard, had broken in, not literally thanks to his damn gene, and somehow managed to fold and fit a rubber exercise mat onto the floor of his shower.

Oh ha, ha, very funny.

And there was a sign tacked to the wall of his shower that said, 'Beware the soap of doom'.

Really, how childish could someone get?

The final touch was a new bar of soap that someone, no need to guess who, had carefully drilled a hole in, threaded some thin rope through and securely attached to one on the shower fixtures, in such a way that he could still use the soap without having to untie it from its new home.

He'd sighed, and then removed the sign, intending to throw it away; and if it somehow managed to find its way into a desk drawer, so what? It was a shame to waste their limited supply of paper and maybe he could reuse it one day.

Then he'd called Carson. He'd thought about calling Sheppard down to help remove the mat from his shower, but couldn't face it. Carson wasn't much better, chuckling at the major's antics while helping him shift the mat out, and then taking the opportunity to prod and poke his wrist, before leaving with a big damn smile on his face.

The soap on a rope remained.

**Five:**

___Noun - __Animal Husbandry -__a compacted block of soybeans, cottonseeds, or linseeds from which the oil has been pressed, usually used as a feed or feed supplement for cattle._

_**Set Season Two**_

It was a Pegasus version of cattle cake for a Pegasus version of cattle; big as rhinos, they were mean like water buffalo, and believe him, too many nature documentaries had told him that they were _mean_ and even lions treated them with extreme caution.

These keklies were definitely mean, and ugly as sin too. Not to mention mad for the cattle cake. Apparently they'd do anything for it, and this was how the villagers had been able to control them; through bribery.

The culled or dead villagers that was.

An exasperated Teyla had explained about the keklies and the cattle cake later, but at the time _it _happened, she and Sheppard had been on the other side of the village.

Of course, it hadn't helped that the cake looked like flapjack, causing Ronon, that fearless eater of unknown foodstuffs, to try it and declare it edible, even very pleasant.

It was all Ronon's fault, he decided.

So, he'd been hungry, but he'd had no intention of trying the alien cake until Ronon's enthusiasm finally got the better of him. So, it tasted wondrous and he'd gathered some to take back with them for later. So what? It was still all Ronon's fault, big damn garbage can that he was.

The keklies, of course, had smelt the cake as he passed by their enclosure and had charged the fences. The damaged by Wraith fire fences, that buckled and broke under the stampede.

He'd been fortunate that there was a stone building close by for him, and Ronon, to dive into, though the whole structure shook when the herd started pushing it, trying to find a way in.

A frantic radio message and a few minutes later a quick thinking Teyla had located a barn holding further cattle cake and opened its doors wide, throwing down bits of cake in a trail towards it and jumping quickly out of the way once the keklies smelt the new source of food and dived off after it.

He was forced to throw the cake he'd collected away, and they beat a hasty retreat from the village and its now free, marauding not-really-cows. Returning to Atlantis, having escaped injury by the skin of his teeth, he thought it was over, but a few hours later saw him leaning over the toilet bowl, heaving up his insides. It wasn't fatal and he'd been assured it would only last a few hours at most.

His only satisfaction was that Ronon was in similar dire straits.

He heaved again; a few hours? Oh crap…

The End

___A/N for information on the Ashbourne Shrovetide 'football' game and pancake races go here:_

___www. learnenglish. de/ Temp/ March/ ShroveTuesday. htm (remove spaces)  
_

___Also, the OC should stand for Original Cat I guess!_


End file.
